


The girl at the rock show

by Jennarated_Anomaly



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Song: Girl at the Rock Show (Blink-182), There's A Tag For That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 20:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennarated_Anomaly/pseuds/Jennarated_Anomaly
Summary: "She took my hand, and that made it I swear"...or in this case, she said "run".  John Smith loses his wallet at a concert (as do the best of us), and meets a girl at the rock show.





	The girl at the rock show

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Blink-182's "Rock show", because absolutely nobody needed this...but maybe somebody wants it. Enjoy!

He swirled the last dregs of drink around his clear plastic cup. They were warm already: half an hour in the humid night would do that, even without the added heat of sweaty moshers, pyrotechnics, and burning spotlights.

“I’m gonna get another drink”, he hollered. “Anyone want anything?”

They didn’t acknowledge him—probably didn’t even _hear_ him, between the howling chorus and screaming girls in front of them.

Either way, he wiped at his sweaty forehead, pushed back the hair that was plastered there, and wedged his way toward concessions; Jack had probably had enough to drink anyway, and Ianto was _his_ date, after all.

“Can I get another…“, he looked into his cup, “…whatever this is?”

The bartender leaned across the divide to take it, examining the contents with a quick sniff. 

“Got a tab?”

“No, I’ll, uh…Cash”, he managed, ears ringing, throat aching, back sore from where someone’d used him as a diving board.

The woman raised a pierced eyebrow, and disappeared as he patted at his bum in search of his wallet.

It wasn’t there. His stomach dropped harder than the bass line.

Against all hope, he fished a couple fingers in each of the excessively-small pockets on his hips, even though he knew his wallet wouldn’t be there; if it were, he’d have seen it, given that the tail end of each pocket poked out from the ragged tears that climbed his thighs like lines of latitude.

He groaned.

“Five quid.” 

The bartender set the cup between them, shook the foam that dribbled down her fingers.

“Sorry”, he started. He forked a hand through his hair and gave a crooked smile, “think I lost my wallet.”

“Right.”

She grabbed the cup carelessly, spilling glorious IPA all over the bar mats, filling the ungrateful crevices with the hoppy, golden ale that should have been his.

“It’s on me”, a voice—his savior—said. 

She leaned against the bar a few meters off: wild-eyed and drop-dead, with frizzy, untamed hair and pants even tighter than his. She raised on tip-toe to pass a note between chipped black nails, a lazy smile teasing faded red lips, like she owned the place. Like she owned the _world_. 

“I’ll be right back with your drinks.” 

“Thanks”, the woman purred. She twisted round, squared her shoulder blades against the rounded bar edge, and tipped her head back. Eyes closed, she stayed like that: a silhouette against the pulsing strobes, completely at home amongst the chaos, the words “Bad Wolf” rising and falling across her chest as she breathed in the night.

“I’m Rose”, she said.

Was she…was she talking to him? It could have been to anyone, really: the bloke at her left, the sky above, the _entire universe_ , for all he knew, because she wasn’t looking at him, and there was no reason to believe she’d even want to talk to him, except that she bought him a drink, but that didn’t mean-- 

With one last deep breath, she opened her eyes and bumped away from the bar. The people between them parted like the Beatles, like the Red Sea, like… _people_ , _moving_ , so that _she_ could talk to _him_ —which was easily as life-changing and miraculous as those other things. 

“’S a bit loud”, she shrugged, sorry-not-sorry. “I’m Rose.”

“Rose…”, he murmured. It was perfect, somehow. "Rose."

“What?”

“I don’t know”, he admitted.

She smirked beneath heavy black lashes.

“Oh! Right, I’m—I’m-John-but-my-friends-call-me-the-Doctor.”

Her brows raised, eyes crinkled, and her lips—add it to the list of life-changing and miraculous—split into a breathtaking smile. Just for a second, though, and then she was laughing.

Was that good or bad? 

WAS THAT GOOD OR BAD?

He fiddled with the paper band that was slowly waxing away the hair on his wrist.

“Sorry?”

“No”, she reassured, “no. It’s just… Again, a little slower, this time?”

Oh.

The bartender deposited two plastic cups before them, each overflowing with a ridiculous amount of head.

He grabbed one, raised it toward Rose with a nod, and gulped, wiping the foam from his face before trying again—slower this time.

“I’m John. My friends call me the Doctor.”

“The Doctor”, she repeated, swiping her own drink and sipping far more delicately than he had.

Silence. Well, as much as there could be at a rock show. But since hers was the only one that mattered… 

“I think”, she observed after a decidedly less-delicate swig, “that we’re missing the show, _Doctor_.”

He glanced at the stage.

“I think you’re right”, he agreed.

Warbling reverb hailed the end of the second set; the crowd erupted. 

Neither moved.

“Want to go watch? Together?”, she suggested.

“I—”

“Unless you’ve already got someone,” she amended quickly, “to watch with, you know.”

“I—”

“’Cuz I’ve got my friends, I just thought…”

“Yeah, no, I’m just…I’m just here with my mates, too. But if you’d like…I’d like to watch, with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She offered a hand, decorated with thick silicone bracelets at her wrist, some with band names and others with social justice slogans.

He took it.

And so completely lost in that radiant smile of hers, he turned back toward the throbbing crowd, and promptly collided with a brick-wall of a human, crushing the wimpy plastic cup of beer between them.

The Wall looked down, brushed at his shirt—which simply said “death”, nothing else—and glared a bloodshot glare.

“Erm…”

He wasn’t _sure_ , but he was _pretty sure_ , that the odds of him losing his face—or consciousness, at least—were not in his favor. 

Rose’s grip tightened.

“Run!”, she whispered.


End file.
